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Findings of fact, and matters of law in Apple v. Samsung @reckless

I can’t believe how much bullshit is being written after the first round of the trial and the verdict, and I really can’t believe that the people on the most recent Vergecast completely failed to mention this.

As for the whole appeals thing? Don’t let anyone tell you that “the verdict doesn’t matter.” They’re wrong. The verdict matters hugely. The jury decided that Samsung infringed and diluted, and those are findings of fact. An appeals court cannot overturn findings of fact unless “no reasonable jury” could have arrived at those conclusions. I’ll tell you right now: that’s not going to happen (it is exceedingly rare).
What Samsung can appeal are matters of law. These include findings on the validity of patents and protectability (like validity) of trade dress. Samsung will certainly appeal these issues, but the jury already decided that Apple’s patents were valid, and its trade dress protectable. Appellate judges are rarely keen to argue with a jury’s findings. And frankly, don’t get your hopes up here, either, especially on the patents. Apple’s D’677 patent has already survived the scrutiny of Judge Koh as having no “reasonable likelihood” of invalidity.
Samsung can also appeal some issues related to damages (such as how they’re calculated), but that’s getting into a fairly complex area of the law. As for excluded evidence, Samsung can appeal Judge Koh’s refusal to include testimony or evidence, but that is decided as a matter of abuse of judicial discretion – an extremely high bar to meet. Samsung would have to prove Judge Koh failed in her duties as a judge, and that no reasonable judge could have come to the decision she did. Much like invalidating a jury verdict, this is a long-shot at best.
Suffice to say, Samsung’s appeals docket will probably be pretty long. How much good will it do? Considering the parties haven’t settled by now (and Samsung won on zero counts), it’s unlikely Apple will be interested in compromising in exchange for Samsung foregoing an appeal. At this point, they’re in it to hurt Samsung, as they’ve made clear.